Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Boglebom here with a classic brain Stuff episode.
Speaker 1: In this one, we talked about a technological process that
Speaker 1: was just getting started back when this episode originally published
Speaker 1: in using recycled plastics in paving and fixing up roads.
Speaker 1: Since then, research and rollout have continued, but here are
Speaker 1: the basics, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. A few
Speaker 1: years ago, engineered Toby McCartney was working in southern India
Speaker 1: with a charity that aided pickers who worked at landfill
Speaker 1: sites harvesting reusable items and selling them. McCartney discovered that
Speaker 1: the plastic waste they retrieved was being put into potholes
Speaker 1: and roads, dused with gasoline and set a fire. When
Speaker 1: the plastic melted into the holes and then hardened, it
Speaker 1: filled them. When McCartney returned to Scotland, he told two
Speaker 1: of his friends about what he had seen. As one
Speaker 1: of them, Gordon Reid, were halls, they decided that it
Speaker 1: would work better to use plastic waste to create a
Speaker 1: new type of materials specifically designed for use in roads.
Speaker 1: After a year of research, they developed a method for
Speaker 1: transforming a mix of industrial and consumer plastic waste into
Speaker 1: pellets of a new material that could replace bitumen, the
Speaker 1: oil based ceiling material that holds asphalt together in roads.
Speaker 1: Since Reid's company, Mcgreeber started operations in April of the
Speaker 1: company's recycled plastic road building material has been used to
Speaker 1: build roadways in places ranging from Australia to Dubai. A
Speaker 1: Reid says, we've got roads on every continent and we've
Speaker 1: had interest from round about fifty countries in the world.
Speaker 1: The company currently is having discussions with the University in
Speaker 1: California about building a test road to demonstrate that its
Speaker 1: plastics are compatible with standards in the United States. According
Speaker 1: to Read, using recycled plastic for road building sounds simple,
Speaker 1: but it actually requires a complex process to create the
Speaker 1: right material. He explained, different plastics do different things to bitterman.
Speaker 1: If you use the wrong mix, it can actually make
Speaker 1: the bittermen more brittle. Micreeper avoids using pet bottles and
Speaker 1: other types of plastic that are easily recycled, and instead
Speaker 1: concentrates on types of waste plastic that might otherwise end
Speaker 1: up buried in the ground. Read declined to go into
Speaker 1: too much detail as so not to reveal too much
Speaker 1: about mcgreeber's proprietary process. In addition to keeping plastic out
Speaker 1: of landfills, the company says it's plastic road materials can
Speaker 1: save about a ton in carbon dioxide output for each
Speaker 1: ton of bnemen that the plastic replaces. The company has
Speaker 1: developed different types of road building plastic four different environments.
Speaker 1: One variety is designed for roads in such places as
Speaker 1: the Middle East, where more tensile strength is needed to
Speaker 1: resist asphalts tendency to deform from heat. Another is designed
Speaker 1: to be more flexible and resist the freeze thaw cycle
Speaker 1: in colder places such as Canada or Scotland. Read says
Speaker 1: mcgreeber's current products are capable of replacing between six and
Speaker 1: twenty of the bitumen in roads, but Read is hopeful
Speaker 1: that within two years improved versions will replace as much
Speaker 1: as a Red says that mcgreeber's plastic road materials physically
Speaker 1: bind with the bittermin which prevents it from breaking loose
Speaker 1: and getting into the environment. In the US, plastic is
Speaker 1: already being used in road maintenance. University of Texas at Arlington,
Speaker 1: civil engineer Professor Sahoda Hussein director of the School Solid
Speaker 1: Waste Institute for Sustainability, has turned to recycled plastic as
Speaker 1: a way to solve the problem of unstable soil on
Speaker 1: highway slopes, which eventually can cause the road surface to
Speaker 1: fail as well. He's developed a technology for taking plastic
Speaker 1: from landfills and then recycling it to manufactured giant pins
Speaker 1: that are inserted into the falling soil to stabilize it.
Speaker 1: Cousin explained via email that the recycled plastic pin quote
Speaker 1: has been successfully tested as a laterally loaded pile in
Speaker 1: different highway slope stabilization projects in the state of Texas, Iowa,
Speaker 1: and Missouri. The Texas Department of Transportation has adopted the
Speaker 1: recycled plastic pin as one of their approved slope stabilization methods.
Speaker 1: It takes just three to four minutes to install each
Speaker 1: of the pins in the ground, so an entire unstable
Speaker 1: area can be shored up in a few days. He said.
Speaker 1: Once the pin is installed into the ground, it is
Speaker 1: less susceptible to degradation, which makes it a long lasting
Speaker 1: solution for slope repair. Each recycled pin utilizes about five
Speaker 1: hundred plastic soda bottles at one of the demonstration sites,
Speaker 1: Hussein's research group put six hundred plastic pins into the ground,
Speaker 1: making use of some three hundred thousand plastic bottles that
Speaker 1: otherwise would have ended up in landfills. Hussaine thinks that
Speaker 1: the Chinese government's recent decision to ban imports of plastic
Speaker 1: waste for recycling could create an opportunity for US entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: to make road materials. China imported seven hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: six thousand metric tons of plastic waste from the United
Speaker 1: States in TwixT Hussein said I am positive more and
Speaker 1: more roads will be constructed using recycled plastics, but he
Speaker 1: does note that more work needs to be done to
Speaker 1: develop new methods, including full scale testing and life cycle
Speaker 1: analysis of roads containing plastic materials m Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Recycled plastic waste creates Roads on
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, written by Patrick J. Keiger.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio in
Speaker 1: partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced
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